


Conflict of Interests

by deargebleidd



Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: 2500 words of nothing, Episode: s04e19 47 Seconds, Episode: s04e21 Headhunters, Episode: s05e23 The Human Factor, F/M, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Why didn't anyone warn me about ao3 formatting?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29298603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deargebleidd/pseuds/deargebleidd
Summary: Beckett interviews for the DC job during the 47 Seconds arc. One shot.
Relationships: Jim Beckett & Kate Beckett, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Kudos: 4





	Conflict of Interests

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Twitter prompt from @bunysliper: "Fic Prompt I'm throwing out there: 47 Seconds arc - Beckett receives the DC job offer during the time Castle starts shutting her out."

_Beep! You have_ One _new message and_ Ten _old messages. Message_ One _._

“Hey, Castle.”

She sounded… worn out. But that wasn’t really his problem, now, was it?

“We’ve got an interesting case on. I know you’ve been… spending a lot of time writing lately, but I think you’ll like this one. Looks like the military and Homeland are involved.” 

Was she nervous, too? A few weeks ago, he’d have said that was uncharacteristic.

“Let me know if you want me to pick you up. I’ll be passing by your neighborhood in about forty minutes.”

 _Beep! To hear this message again, press_ Three. _To skip this message, press_ Five _. To delete this message, press_ Six Five _._

_Beep beep._

Two weeks after that ignored call, Castle returned to the Twelfth Precinct.

The fourth floor of the Twelfth was achingly familiar to Castle when he stepped out of the elevator. After more than three years of spending his days in this place, his three-week absence had him taking in the bullpen with appreciative eyes.

Ryan came out of the break room and stopped in his tracks when he spotted Castle. He crossed his arms over a folder at his chest. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.” He sauntered — Ryan sauntered — over to lean on Beckett’s empty desk.

Esposito followed him and casually spoke to Ryan. “I guess he doesn’t have amnesia after all.” He turned dark eyes on Castle. “See, we thought maybe you couldn’t remember how to get here or something.”

“Or how to answer the phone,” put in Ryan. “Although, maybe he does have it. I don’t see any coffee in his hands. No donuts. Nothing.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Castle said in a contrite tone that didn’t match their half-joking-but-not-really attitude. “I’ve been busy. Writing. Gotta meet deadlines.” He could tell they didn’t believe him. He needed to change the subject. “Where’s Beckett?”

They continued to stare at him for a beat, and then Esposito answered. “She’s off for three days. Long weekend.”

“Beckett? Kate Beckett? Taking time off?” he tried to joke, but it was wrong. Everything was wrong.

“She had to go out of town,” Ryan answered. “Why are you here?”

“Do you know anything about this gang cop named Slaughter?”

“You came to ask about the severed heads case?”

“Yeah, I saw it on the news. It would make for some great storytelling. I just thought I’d look into this Slaughter guy, get a sense of who he is for the background research.”

“Right. Slaughter.”

  
“Hi, Dad. Thanks for meeting me. I know we usually wait for Sundays, but I really wanted to talk to you. It’s good to see you.” Kate leaned into her father’s hug, more clingy than he’d expected from his stoic daughter.

“Katie, you sounded so worried on the phone. Here, let’s sit. Oh, you’ve gotten us coffee already. That’s great.”

They sat on opposite sides of the booth and took several moments to doctor their coffees.

Jim Beckett studied his daughter. She was put together, wearing a sleek coat and tall boots. Several years ago, he might have been among the people who thought she was just the same as always. But they’d been rebuilding their relationship over the past couple of years and he could see that she was exhausted, and worried, and unhappy.

“What’s wrong?”

“I got a job offer, Dad. In DC. I got back from the interview last night.”

“That’s great! How did that come about?”

“I worked a case with a man, an Agent Stack, from the Attorney General’s office. He was… impressed with me. Said I could do bigger, better things with the Attorney General than the NYPD.”

“I’m so proud of you. That’s wonderful. But you don’t seem very happy.”

Kate leaned back, her fingers still curled defensively around her ceramic mug. “I… This would be a massive step for my career. The resources they have…” She trailed off and didn’t continue.

“But you would have to leave the city,” he guessed.

She nodded. “The NYPD is home to me. I’ve dedicated more than a decade to it, to this city. I don’t know what I would do in DC. With a new team. I would have to relearn everything, build a whole new life. And… New York is where…”

He considered his words before he spoke again. “Katie. Your mom, her memory, isn’t in New York. She’s in you, and leaving wouldn’t be betraying her.”

She nodded again, accepting the words, but her eyes were shiny now, and she stared into her half-empty coffee.

“What about your Castle?” He might have laughed, under different circumstances, at the quick jerk of her head, her widened eyes.

Oh, that wall could come down fast, couldn’t it? Her whole body stiffened, her eyes shuttered.

“He’s not— He hasn’t been around much lately.”

“He’s not a consideration in your decision?”

“He’s a part of the team I’d be leaving behind.”

“Katie,” he warned in his best I’m-your-father-tell-me-the-truth tone.

“I don’t know what happened. He’s been doing his best to avoid me for weeks now. He doesn’t come to the precinct, rarely comes to scenes. He brushes me off when I try to talk to him. I think he just… got bored of the NYPD life… of me.”

“Oh, Katie.”

Jim Beckett very much doubted that was the case — he’d seen the man’s influence on her over the past three years, had seen his devotion first hand during that terrible time in the hospital.

His daughter would make a decision about this job offer. She would deliberate, weigh pros and cons, review evidence. But she wouldn’t lose sleep over it. No, it was clear that her unhappiness lay in the current state of her relationship with Castle.

But how to make her see that? How to make her face it?

  
What am I doing? Kate wondered to herself, not for the first time. She sat down at her desk, settling in to clear paperwork after a morning spent in court. Three days after coffee with her father and she still didn’t have a good answer. His entirely too-insightful _What are you going to do about Castle?_

The precinct buzzed around her, so familiar, so much like home. She could identify six different people walking through the room by their footsteps, could smell Walters’ distinct cologne, knew exactly how Rodriguez organized her murder board versus Karpowski or her own team, knew how to operate the AV equipment and the coffee machine.

She busied herself with her computer when she heard a new set of footsteps approaching.

He stopped beside his chair, hovering instead of sitting.

“Hey. How’s it going?” At a glance, it looked like the last thing he wanted was to be talking to her.

“What do you want, Castle?”

“Look,” he started, and with his jacket folded over his arm, finally perched on the edge of his chair. “I thought, since you were in court, I would do some research on another detective.” 

He paused, and she thought he was assessing her reaction to this news. She kept her expression cool.

“Slaughter, his name is. He’s in gangs, and he let me work on this case. It was severed heads, Beckett. I thought it would be so cool!”

“Ryan and Esposito filled me in. Said you were here last week.”

“Yes,” he nodded, relieved. “But… Slaughter went too far.”

“Isn’t that what he does? Along with kicking ass and taking names?” She was proud of the way her voice stayed level.

Castle winced. “Espo told you I said that? No. Look. He pressured a kid into making a false statement so he could arrest Vales.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So you came to me so I can fix it? You’ve barely spoken to me in a month.”

“I have to make this right.” He leaned in, and the familiarity of his closeness, the sincerity of his plea, swamped her. “This kid, and Vales… I can’t say they’ve done nothing wrong, but they didn’t do this. They don’t deserve this.”

Beckett studied his face for a moment. Whatever had gone wrong between them over the last few weeks, he was putting justice and innocence before it. She had to respect that.

She nudged a folder across the desk to him.

“What’s this?” He looked uncharacteristically baffled but opened it.

“Vales’ car was 10 blocks from the cemetery heading away from the overpass where Glitch was killed. Traffic cam footage that Ryan found.”

“You… you did this for me?” He looked at her with some of the wonder that always used to shine in his face.

He turned back to the folder, studied the photos, the map, the printed timeline. “All this time you had my back. But, wait, this doesn’t make sense. To get to the overpass, Glitch would have to climb a six-foot fence. Why do that when there’s a subway station a block away? Why hide when you can run?”

“Maybe we can find out.”

Castle looked infinitely more at ease than she’d seen him in weeks.

  
“Thanks very much for your help.”

He smiled at her, a genuine smile. It shone brightly in the late evening precinct. She would have missed that smile, she thought, if she’d never seen it again, in this place.

“No problem, Castle. It’s what partners are supposed to do.”

His face fell. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You should have listened to Ryan and Esposito when they warned you. But it’s done now.”

“What about you? Will you be okay, with the Chief of Detectives, I mean. I can make some calls—”

“I’ll be fine, Castle. Hearing is next week. If he suspends me, I’ll deal.”

“And if he, I mean, if it’s worse?”

She looked away, shuffled papers that were already completed. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” She shut down her computer.

He hesitated, then resolved himself. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“That sounds nice, Castle.”

She gathered up her own coat and followed him out of the precinct. They shared a cab to the Old Haunt and set themselves up with tumblers in the underground office.

Part of her was resentful that they had to do this on his territory, but most of her appreciated the privacy. The scotch burned a trail of relief down her throat—time to get this over with.

He was sitting in the office chair, but had moved it to the side of the desk. She paced in front of the couch for a moment before sitting on the edge.

“You know I was out of town last week?” At his nod, she continued, “I went to DC for a job interview.”

He took a moment to process that information. She watched as shock, dismay, and perhaps even despair warred across his face before he schooled it into bland congratulations.

“Wow.”

“We worked a case a few weeks ago with an agent from Homeland. You were busy writing, then, and didn’t answer your phone. Anyway, he offered me a chance to interview to work in the Attorney General’s office. This will be a big step in my career, a big change for me. I thought you would need to know, because of your research for Nikki.” She’d started out strong but finished lamely, and stood to pace off her nervous energy again. She doubted he needed to follow her around with the NYPD for the sake of research anymore. He’d proved he didn’t need to follow her around at all. “The resources at their disposal will allow me to pursue professional as well as personal advancement, and—”

“Are you giving me the elevator pitch, Beckett? It’s your life, if you want this job, then—” He cut himself off and blanched.

“What?”

“Personal advancement, Beckett?” Why did he look so sick about it?

“Yes. I believe that after I’ve acclimated there, proven myself, I’ll be able to reopen my sniper’s case, my mother’s case—”

“You can’t!” He blurted out. He drew back as if struck, as if he wanted to pull those words back out of the air.

Icy now, she turned on him. “As you said, it’s my life. So you don’t get to—”

Her phone rang. Surely the universe hated them, the way it interrupted every serious conversation they ever tried to have.

“Excuse me. I have to take this.” She climbed out of the office, leaving Castle behind.

She couldn’t take that job. The Attorney General’s office, really? It wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t be safe there. He’d nearly forgotten, mired as he was in his own misery, that he was supposed to be keeping her safe. Keeping her from bleeding out. Again.

He waited for her to return. When she wasn’t back in two minutes, he stood and paced. When another five had passed, he pulled out his phone and started researching the current Attorney General. Who was he affiliated with? Was he involved in the conspiracy?

Fully twenty minutes had gone by when she returned, no longer looking angry with him.

She looked drained, actually. Exhausted. If he really looked, in the way he’d been avoiding doing for the last month, he could see that she was worn, had been even when they’d shared that high of solving a murder.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

She stared blankly past him for a minute, and then her eyes focused on him. “I didn’t get the job.”

“Oh, Kate, I’m sorry.” It was an instinctual reaction, and he genuinely felt it. Then relief flooded in.

She smiled wryly. “I didn’t pass the psych.”

He nodded sympathetically, but internally he was evaluating all the ways this would keep her safe, keep her out of the rabbit hole, keep the dragon at bay.

“After all the time and work I’ve put in this year, I thought I was making progress. Thought I was almost ready to… well. Guess I’m more messed up than I realized.”

“All the work?” he asked blankly.

“Therapy. I didn’t want to make any excuses, after… well, you know. And I thought I was almost where I wanted to be. But now…”

“Kate.”

“Why did you say I couldn’t take this job?”

“Oh, you know. Nikki isn’t a federal agent. I need an NYPD cop to follow around!”

“Castle, we have been working together for more than three years. Why are you lying to me?”

All that concern from half an hour ago, all the ways he realized she still needed him, the ways he thought maybe he’d overreacted, went out the window.

Voice low and dangerous, he said, “You want to talk about lying, Beckett?”

**Author's Note:**

> Edit 2/9/21: Based on feedback I updated the ending.


End file.
